This copy is for your personal non-commercial use only. To order presentation-ready copies of Toronto Star content for distribution to colleagues, clients or customers, or inquire about permissions/licensing, please go to: www.TorontoStarReprints.com

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange damns The Fifth Estate as a “geriatric snoozefest,” saying the film falsely portrays him and his whistle-blowing online organization.

His keen interest is understandable. Since 2010, the Aussie muckraker has morphed from obscure web activist into international firebrand, one worthy of portrayal by in-demand actor Benedict Cumberbatch. (Assange is also in demand, by legal and government authorities. Hence his current status as asylum seeker, living in the Ecuadorian embassy in London.)

Article Continued Below

Subjects of a film rarely make the best judges of them, and Assange is no exception. The “geriatric” part of his slag is simply silly (he’s 42, Cumberbatch is 37) and as for the “snoozefest” bit, it’s entirely the opposite problem for The Fifth Estate, the gala opener of this year’s TIFF.

Too much info is hurled at the screen, much of it at a rapid clip that makes it hard to take in. Director Bill Condon (Dreamgirls) and screenwriter Josh Singer (TV’s The West Wing) adopt the info-dump approach of WikiLeaks, combining elements of biopic, thriller and didactic documentary for a story that engages the mind but sometimes slogs.

At the heart of it is Cumberbatch’s sterling portrayal of Assange, a man who takes the “publish and be damned” ethos to 21st-century heights, shaking world governments with revealed secrets and lies, just a few clicks away.

The performance may not be to Assange’s liking. But it seems true to his public image as a man who, although not short of intellect, ambition or ideals, otherwise lacks social graces and quite possibly a conscience.

Together with his geeky German tech adviser Daniel Domscheit-Berg (Rush revelation Daniel Brühl), first seen in a 2007 flashback, Assange shocks world governments in 2010 by allying with newspapers the New York Times, the Guardian and Der Spiegel, to fully leak online (and partially in print) nearly 400,000 confidential U.S. government documents.

Many of the documents concern the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. WikiLeaks exposes intemperate remarks by U.S. and other government officials that often vary from the public record, such as civilian death tolls higher than previously reported.

Assange is declared a hero in some quarters and a traitor in others, since the leaks also risk exposing the identities of undercover agents worldwide. His arrogance rising along with his notoriety, he rejoins that it’s neither his desire nor responsibility to edit the material covertly obtained by WikiLeaks.

The practical, ethical and legal implications of Assange’s attitudes and behaviour are duly covered by The Fifth Estate, as is the inevitable old press versus new media tussle over the responsibilities and challenges of the digital era. A sturdy supporting cast that includes David Thewlis, Stanley Tucci, Laura Linney, Anthony Mackie and Alicia Vikander brings flesh and blood to the proceedings, if not always warmth and light.

There’s one very curious thing about The Fifth Estate, however. As much it claims urgency with current events and issues, it seems out of date, even coming just three years after the real events. Maybe Assange is on to something after all, with his “geriatric snoozefest” slag.

Assange has now largely vanished from the news, replaced by stories about Edward Snowden, the former National Security Agency official who this year exposed the U.S. government’s dirty secrets about widespread wiretapping. Snowden is also on the run, perhaps waiting for his own Hollywood close-up — and wouldn’t Daniel Radcliffe be a dandy casting pick?

The Fifth Estate unintentionally makes for an object lesson about short attention spans, something long known by journalists: today’s headlines are tomorrow’s fish wrap.

More from the Toronto Star & Partners

LOADING

Copyright owned or licensed by Toronto Star Newspapers Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or distribution of this content is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Toronto Star Newspapers Limited and/or its licensors. To order copies of Toronto Star articles, please go to: www.TorontoStarReprints.com